Bank of Uganda (BoU) has named Stanbic bank as the best-performing Primary Dealer Market Maker (PDMM) for the past year. It is a record 11th time that Stanbic has won the award.
Primary dealing in banking refers to the process whereby financial institutions buy and sell government securities, such as bonds and treasury bills, directly from BoU to help raise revenues to support government spending.
The practice started in 2005, and following major reforms in 2020, it is limited to eight banks to guarantee subscriptions to primary auctions with added market-making obligations, for increased trading and more efficient pricing, for a three-year period after which the eight banks would be restructured based on performance.
While handing over the award on February 15, deputy governor Dr Michael Atingi-Ego praised Stanbic bank for its contribution to the development of the securities market through participation in the primary auctions and fulfilling their market-making obligations in the secondary market.
“The bank has consistently posted two-way bid-ask pricing across the entire yield curve, as well as trading and reporting trades on Bloomberg. I am therefore pleased to announce Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd as the Best Performing Primary Dealer Market Maker in Uganda government securities for the ranking year ended September 2022,” he said.
Stanbic CEO Anne Juuko, for her part, stated that winning the award validates their commitment to assisting governments in mobilizing resources to finance development activities.
“I thank BoU for the recognition and our global markets team at Stanbic, for the hard work. This win is a statement of our commitment to playing our part in the collective responsibility of driving Uganda’s growth, which also happens to be our purpose,” she said.
Allan Muhinda, the Stanbic Bank Uganda head of global markets, which directly oversees the securities trading business, also said the award is a strong vote of confidence in the team he leads.
“We thank our customers because this award is only possible when their experience doing business with us is satisfactory,” said Muhinda.
In 2022, secondary market liquidity improved, with trading volume rising 11 per cent to Shs 47.4 trillion in the PDMM year ending September 2022 from Shs 42.6 trillion in 2021.
